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| Smoke and Mirrors by Ken Goldman (Issue 8) |
Amid the boardwalk’s salt aired ambrosia of cotton candy and popcorn, college aged hucksters hawked carnival games with tacky promises of stuffed purple Barneys and Pokémon doll ripoffs. A few hand holding couples stopped to play. Most advanced along the Ocean Pier midway towards the fire storm of laser lights at the pier’s tip, heading for the latest attraction whose neon turrets seemed to climb forever into the starry night. The scene’s accompanying soundtrack presented a convincing argument that disco was neither alive nor well in South Jersey.
‘Get down Boogie Oogie Oogie . . .’
Cameron Gilhooley watched the gimmicky teaser meant to lure the summer crowds inside the amusement pier’s new high tech fun house. He couldn’t decide whether his investment represented a perspective more retro than state-of-the-art. He concluded he didn’t really give a shit. When you got down to it, only one thing mattered.
Within the glass disco cage alongside the entrance to the Haunted Castle an undulating animatronic Vampirella and her hem stitched partner swayed to the music like the new millennium’s answer to Fred and Ginger.
“I want to Boogie Oogie Oogie ‘till I die . . .”
Gilhooley turned his attention from the dancing ghouls to the laser beam extravaganza riddling the night sky. A passage from Genesis sprang to mind.
‘And God saw that it was good.’
It sure as hell was.
Dressed in powder blue Armani threads and imported Italian wing-tipped loafers the pier’s majority stock holder hardly appeared the type to rub elbows with the shorts-and-sandals summer crowd. Even smiling he looked as if his snow cone could use a squirt of Dewers.
Noting the approach of a body-pierced herd of kids, Gilhooley leaned forward, overhearing one gawky pubescent exclaim “All right! This place kicks ass!” He mentally recorded the critique, silently crunching numbers while around him crowds shuffled forward like cattle, pushing past the crews of television news teams setting up for the eleven o’clock spot. The commotion recalled the frenzy of another night during the past summer’s drought when events on Ocean Pier became the lead story under much different circumstances.
Built in 1960 the original Haunted Castle offered visitors their two bucks’ worth of chills. It featured the requisite recorded groans and rattling chains following you down twisting dark corridors and buckling floors into a dozen spook-infested chambers rife with vampires and demons, ultimately leading through huge rolling barrels whose sole purpose in a less libelous era was to knock you on your ass. Near the exit ramp air compressors went psssssssssttt!!! and blew cold gusts up your wazoo in full view of those in line waiting to get inside. Although meant to be enormously clever during an age when teenaged girls wore poodle skirts and several layers of underwear, in later years the bit became tired and pitiful. A generation weaned on George Lucas light shows and Disney World holographics no longer bought the bullshit. Worse, they no longer bought tickets.
“Fuckin’ A! Lookit what they did with this place, man . . .”
“Bitchin’!”
During the Labor Day weekend of the previous summer the old Haunted Castle conveniently burned to cinders. A pimpled punker named Zimmerman - his attention focused on getting his tongue as far down his date’s throat as humanly possible - dropped a lit doobie at the feet of a decayed wooden Count Dracula. The Count’s tattered cape took eighteen seconds to fully ignite, and once kindled the old bloodsucker did not keep the flames to himself for very long. He took with him an even more dilapidated (and decapitated) Marie Antoinette along with a sorry excuse for Blue Beard, whose swashbuckling days of terrifying ticket holders were long behind him. Three minutes later the Haunted Castle’s timeworn conglomerate of horror’s superstars performed a blazing fright show that exceeded anyone’s expectations. Certainly it surpassed the expectations of the six kids aged eleven to seventeen who were trapped inside.
Lookit this goddamned line, dude, just lookit this shit . . . no way we’re gettin’ in any time soon . . .”
“Me an’ Christina was here last summer when it happened . . . some really bad shit went down . . .”
“I got to pee right now, Jack-o . . . I’m not kiddin’ you, man . . .”
When the bean counters tallied today’s ticket receipts C. Gilhooley Enterprises’ cartel of share holding silent partners might consider shaking the Zimmerman kid’s hand for his gift of fire, although offering that congratulatory handshake would prove difficult. Trey Zimmerman’s entire right arm had been barbecued to a crispy stump by a flaming skeleton that separated him from his girlfriend Tammy like an enraged lover.
Zimmerman was one of the lucky ones.
Two days following the blaze, fire fighters carried out six young bodies reduced to charcoal semblances of humans. The legal smoke took a bit longer to clear than the castle’s, but inspections of the charred structure revealed that low water pressure resulting from the drought had caused the sprinkler system to sputter. A shrewd New York lawyer confirmed Zimmerman’s zoned-out culpability, causing the sobbing young amputee to cave on the witness stand. When the victims’ families settled out of court, that chapter closed. Within the same hour Cameron Gilhooley and Ginny, his third wife, popped the cork on a fresh bottle of champagne.
A fat fire insurance claim returned Ocean Pier’s bottom line to the black and returned smiles to the faces of Gilhooley plus a dozen Japanese investors. New blueprints were drawn up and a financially astute City Council certified that the castle’s construction received priority one for its opening bash by the July 4th weekend.
The Zimmerman kid had saved the Haunted Castle’s financial backers the bothersome task of finding someone to toss a lit match for them. He had unwittingly performed a genuine service, although his fourteen year old gal pal would have been loathe to agree. When firemen located Tammy Cross’ scorched remains crushed beneath the charred rubble of what used to be the wolf man, she resembled a melted wax doll more horrific than any of the castle’s former attractions.
But that was then . . .
Tonight traffic along the Garden State Parkway was impossibly gridlocked at Exit 44, and Cameron Gilhooley knew why. The dancing ghouls knew too.
‘ I love the night life, I’ve got to boogie . . .'
Inside the disco cage Vampirella continued getting down and funky with Leather Face. Gilhooley thought the humor a nice touch. It might take the edge off the scare factor for concerned parents, convince them to dig into their pockets with no fear of traumatizing their little buggers when the dark creepies lurking inside the exhibit jumped from the shadows and screamed “Boo!” Tour guides costumed as grinning witches and smiling ghouls had been hired to offset severe cases of the heebee jeebies. They received scripted monologues meant to keep the smaller kids from shitting themselves and the bigger ones moving.
“What’s that I hear . . .? Wolves, maybe . . .? My God, look over there! Dogs!! There’s a whole pack of them charging at us right now! Quick, we can make it to the next room if we hurry . . .”
See, kids? It’s all make pretend, it’s all for fun, see? So you be sure to tell Mommy and Daddy how much you want to come back. . .
*
The Haunted Castle’s opening day was already proving a media circus, but a true entrepreneur knew these events were only a prologue for the real show tonight. By sunset six squad cars and two paddy wagons arrived to make certain the castle’s premier did not become eleven o’clock’s lead story for the wrong reasons. Gilhooley didn’t mind the presence of Jersey’s finest. You couldn’t pay for this kind of advertising. If it were up to him he would call in the National Guard and have the guys parachute directly over Ocean Pier to give this 2.5 million dollar production the spotlight it deserved. He would even kick in a few bucks to watch the bunch of them free-fall through the lasered sky in butterfly formation.
Gilhooley pushed his way towards the castle’s exit ramp hoping to overhear first-hand reviews of the tour from those coming out. The current tour was still inside, but guides had been given instructions tonight to move their groups along quickly to accommodate the ever-growing throng waiting to get in.
He heard the playful screams of young girls within the ride-through portion of the castle. Their pee-in-your-panties shrieks dissolved into laughter. It was a wonderful sound. Laughing and gibbering about spooks and night creatures as they came down the ramp, girls would be holding their boyfriends’ arms, the young couples going out into the summer night to spread the word like walking billboards.
Of course, it was all smoke and mirrors like the shlockmeisters liked to call it, the orgasmic experience of being caught off guard by some dipsy doodle going booga-booga in the dark. The rush was often better than sex, and there were those who did a lot more than piss themselves when that old adrenalin got pumping. Gilhooley counted on attracting a lot of that crowd.
The girlish squeals inside the castle stopped cold. Someone coming off the ride-through wailed, but the sound seemed uncomfortably genuine. A lengthy silence followed. For an agonizing two minutes there was nothing. Then there was choking amid frenzied gasps for breath. The longer Gilhooley listened the more his throat went raw.
Doors opened and two teenaged girls in cutoffs appeared at the top of the ramp still gasping. The girl with a bare midriff covered her mouth as if fearful she might woof her corn dog. The other stood holding the railing, shaking as if in a seizure.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! Jeannie, are you okay?”
Jeannie seemed in no condition to answer.
An adult couple emerged through the doors, more enraged than frightened.
“It’s all right . . . It’s going to be all right,” the young man kept reassuring the woman. “We don’t have to stay here. We’ll go back to the boardwalk . . . We’ll find a place to sit and get a drink . . .”
“Someone ought to say something, Bill! Someone ought to! They shouldn’t be allowed to put someone -- anyone! -- through this!”
Gilhooley went numb as if on remote control like one of the dancing ghouls. As the couple stepped from the ramp he touched the arm of the man who still held his woman close to him.
“Excuse me,” he managed, introducing himself with an extended hand still sticky from his snow cone. “I’m Cameron Gilhooley, an owner of this attraction. You seem a bit upset by-”
The young woman glowered at him.
“You--you own this place?” she muttered.
“Yes, but I -” Looking ridiculous with his hand still extended, he let it drop. For one terrible moment it seemed as if the woman considered spitting on him. Instead she spat her words.
“You should be ashamed of yourself!”
She shook more violently than before. Gilhooley feared the woman might go into a foaming convulsion. Pulling her date aside, she whispered into his ear. The guy snorted something unintelligible, but Gilhooley only made out ‘sonofabitch’ before the two stormed off.
A big nosed kid coming off the ramp had heard the interplay, and he tapped Gilhooley on the shoulder. “You own the castle?” he asked while his three pals looked on.
Cameron nodded.
“You got balls, man,” the kid said, intending no compliment. He turned and left, his friends casting a look back at Gilhooley. They slapped their buddy on the ass for his display of bravado.
Channel 6’s Larry Gardner approached him. The hip black reporter did light novelty spots on the eleven o’clock news and had just come off the ride-through with a woman companion. His familiar smile was gone. Recognizing Cameron Gilhooley, he poked a long finger into his ribs, his eyes on fire.
“You just wait until eleven o’clock, man.”
Gardner did not remain for a rebuttal.
Something clearly had gone gonzo, but Gilhooley could not imagine what. He had taken a final tour during the morning before the crowds arrived. The animatronics had performed perfectly, the holograms were believably creepy, the THX surroundsound effects bloodcurdling. He had seen nothing that should have created such ranting revulsion. Maybe some last minute gimmick had been added that he hadn’t cleared, some effect that had produced an unanticipated psychological reaction not displayed by any of the test groups taking the tour before the castle officially opened. Could some robotic witch-thing or were-thing seem so abominable as to make every visitor demand his gonads on a plate?
Gilhooley decided to have another look inside the place. Disregarding the rope barriers he pushed his way through the crowd to the head of the line, his breath spent when he got there. “We’re shutting down,” he told the girl collecting tickets while holding back those who had already gathered for the next tour. “No one goes through until I say so.”
The girl looked at Gilhooley as if he should exchange his Armani for a straitjacket but said nothing. She pulled the velvet rope barrier between herself and the crowd.
From deep within the castle’s interior Gilhooley heard the current tour group’s screams. If he moved quickly through the structure he might catch up with them to discover the ulcerating fuck-up inside.
‘Well-commm . . . Step right thisss way . . . Heeee Heeeee Heeee!! . . .’
Past a chortling crypt keeper and through the first winding corridor he searched for something - anything - he had missed. Gothic portraits in black light metamorphosed into holographic night creatures whose bony arms reached beyond their frames for him, an unsettling bit of trickery but nothing worth slowing his pace. The passageway grew darker as he hurried along, each new corridor more serpentine and narrow in the receding light. Right about here tour guides were instructed to pause, explaining with rehearsed skepticism how their group should proceed through the castle’s halls . . .
‘. . . one at a time, and stay close, whatever you do, stay close together for your own safety, please . . . please . . .’
All part of the effect, of course, something to throw you off balance just before the lights went completely out and the walls slid into hidden panels.
Right on cue the winding corridor went pitch. Gilhooley stood alone in a vast dark room, a blind man with arms outstretched touching nothing while the tour guide inside his brain delivered her lines.
‘I think we may have taken a wrong turn . . . Shhh! . . . Shhhhh! Something breathing, breathing just a few feet away. Do you hear it? I think there’s something alive near by, something guarding the castle . . . and it feels . . . it feels like it’s behind us, and it’s . . . it’s coming closer . . . Can’t go back . . . Can’t go back . . .’
But there was no tour guide to tell Gilhooley what to do, not a fucking clue where to go next here in absolute darkness alone with -
. . . with what?
“What’s that I hear? Do you hear it? A wolf, maybe . . .?”
Gilhooley remembered now. His mind had taken a little excursion and he got caught up in the journey. Of course he knew what was coming next. He had been through here just this morning, and days earlier had been in the board room when the castle’s team of developers presented their finalized high tech product to the partners complete with slide show and commentary. His brain played back a mental cassette.
Gilhooley heard deep guttural growls. He remembered.
“Yes! That’s right. That’s right . . .!”
Twelve drooling Doberman pinschers were supposed to come vaulting out of the darkness yelping and snapping their jaws right about now. The walls were mirrored plexiglass and the dogs holograms reflected off them, but amid flashes of strobing lights the three dimensional effect would seem real enough, and the fuckers would be coming out two at a time any sec--
AH-WRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH! AWRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRGGGGHHH!!
Within the flickering stabs of light he saw the Dobermans were huge bastards, all right, and they looked pretty damned real, no doubt about that. Real enough to almost--
Half the pack came through the walls right at him snarling and chomping. Gilhooley’s instincts kicked in. His arms flailed in the darkness like a blindfolded child’s and he threw himself off balance, smashing his knee on the hard wood as he went down.
“Shit! Shit!”
The Dobermans passed right through him like yelping ghosts, disappearing back into the walls. Gilhooley managed to return to the moment. He felt like an idiot. Brushing himself off he got to his feet.
“Goddamned holograms in Dolby stereo . . .”
Pulling out his lighter he struck a flame. There was an electrical box somewhere inside each chamber and if he could locate a light switch he wouldn’t be wasting time playing the castle’s games. He had cracked his knee badly and walking became difficult. Gilhooley ran his hand along the wall. When his fingers touched metal he pulled at the casing until it sprang open. Holding the fire before him he jostled the switch, weary of the chamber’s technological mindfucking. He waited a moment, expecting anything, or worse, nothing. Then the floodlights came on.
This portion of the castle seemed considerably less menacing when its secrets were exposed to a few watts of illumination. The large empty chamber became a simple enclosed room, the growling Dobermans a series of superimposed three dimensional graphics on large mirrored spools behind glass, an impressive illusion to be marveled at during a more convenient time.
Squinting while his eyes adjusted to the light, he listened for the tour group nearby. The castle guests seemed to be having one hell of a time. Their screams were light hearted enough, the laughter genuine. A good time was being had by all, no doubt about that. At least, so far.
For several minutes Gilhooley listened for the echoes of the visitors. He could hear the hearse-like coaches of the ride-through grinding steel wheels in jerking stop/starts where tour guides secured passengers inside the cars and saw them off. The journey along the twisting monorail took the ticket holders careening through a mayhem of dive-bombing bats and high-kicking skeletons. Along the way day-glo demons reached out, erotic she-things climbed into cars, and towards the end a gargantuan toothy night creature blazing with neon devoured each carriage whole, belching as passengers bumped through. The journey’s finale provided a Grand Guignol for the epoch, a go-for-broke parade of macabre effects. There should have been resounding echoes of laughter, and Gilhooley strained hard to hear something from the tour group, anything.
'Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeee Heeeeeeeeeeeee!!'
Only the stereophonic laughter of electronic ghouls inside the tunnel . . .
Only the screeching of the monorail’s steel wheels . . .
Only silence from anything human . . .
. . . then distant screams, a chorus of shrieks from the women and younger girls that would not stop. Some men were shouting, but Gilhooley could not make out words amid the cacophony of electronic mayhem. The cries vanished inside the tunnel.
The ride-through at the tour’s end! That’s where the problem was!
The electrical box opened a secret panel and Gilhooley pushed on. The remaining corridors were shadowy and his knee felt sledgehammered, but he shambled through the dark passageways towards the rumbling hearses, disregarding the circus of strobing light and horned devils that rose from creaking floor boards.
Rounding a sharp bend the conveyer belt of hearses slowed at the ride-though’s designated pick-up point. Lumpy animatronic creatures wriggled in their seats behind steering wheels, chauffeurs of the night whose elongated shadows danced on the cavernous walls for maximum effect. Gilhooley climbed on board and pulled down the safety bar, briefly experiencing the rush of anticipation that others paid good money for. The monorailed hearse jerked him forward around a hairpin curve and sent him spinning on a wild and looping Mr. Toad’s ride into blackness, the ebony casket behind him rattling as he went.
Bathed in sweat, he didn’t remember feeling so warm along the ride-through earlier this morning, nowhere nearly as uncomfortable. Amazing what a few minutes of stress did to you. Still . . .
It was so fucking hot.
The carriage’s demon driver turned towards him to smile a toothy animatronic grin. Twin lanyards of hell fire jetted from his nostrils.
Gilhooley felt the tiny hairs along his arms tingle with heat. In the dim light he saw dark crusty bellows of fumes belching along the tracks.
Not the way it’s supposed to be . . . not the way I remembered it . . .
A gush of thick smoke saturated the tunnel bringing the heat in his throat to a rolling boil. Maybe some idiot had dropped a cigarette . . .
. . . or maybe it was just another hell of a special effect . . .
No. Not likely.
“Fire! Fire!”
Gilhooley’s shouts proved no match for the elaborate surroundsound effects reverberating off the walls.
“Heeeee HeeeeeeHeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”
Careening through a corkscrew spin the car hit a straightaway section of track. Robes of fire danced dead ahead and Gilhooley’s skin blistered in the fry of the roiling flames. He considered climbing out of the rollicking car but the safety bar held him to his seat. Blinded by billows of smoke he doubted he could outrun the flames with a bum leg anyway. If the fire didn’t get him, the next hearse rolling full-tilt boogie along the track would.
“Help me! Fire! Help!”
The lid of the casket behind him creaked. Something inside moaned, and the box slid open. In the midst of fiery chaos the castle’s special effects were still alive and kicking, readying up for the old booga-booga.
A rotting she-thing climbed into the seat alongside his, her blackened flesh hanging in tatters from thin arms. Stinking with the putrescence of overcooked meat gone bad, she reached out for him, moving closer as if to share a secret.
“Mr. Gilhooley . . . Mr. Gil-hooo-leyyy . . .”
“What the - -?”
“ . . . Gil-hooo-leyyyyheeeeeeeeheeeee heeee heeee . . .”
Cameron spun toward his passenger, staring into the empty eye sockets of young Tammy Cross’ char-broiled face. The Zimmerman kid’s late girlfriend was no special effect.
He screamed and kept right on screaming.
The hearse catapulted into the blaze. Walls crumbled on every side.
“Jesus! Oh Jesus!!”
He expected the vehicle to leave its track and hit a folding wall, disintegrating him like a blazing meteor to the accompaniment of Tammy Cross’ laughing screams. It didn’t happen. Laws of reason and gravity no longer applied.
There were other voices now, and subtle movement amid the flames of something coming towards him, calling to him. . .
“We’re dying, Mr. Gilhooley . . . All of us are dying . . .”
“All of us . . . all of us, Mr. Gilhooley . . .”
“Can you see us dying, Mr. Gilhooley? Can you see?”
He recognized their faces. Last summer their photos were on front pages everywhere, the young fire victims roasted alive inside the old haunted castle. Now here they were dying all over again, shrieking human torches in a continually rewound instant replay of one terrible night.
Teddy Mansfield and his girlfriend Andrea were shielding young Jimmy Wilson from the blaze. One after the other the fire took all three of them, the rising flames scorching great folds of flesh from each body like baked rose petals. The Reese sisters, ten and thirteen, huddled together and screeched as if trapped inside a bake oven. Their skin blistered, blackened, then peeled over on itself like withered flaps of paper. Hungry flames gnawed each girl until only skeletal stick figures remained.
Their screams continued even after their flesh was gone. Bones that had been arms reached out to him.
“Dying, Mr. Gilhooley . . . All of us . . . You wanted us to burn, Mr. Gilhooley . . . You wanted this . . .”
“No!” he answered. “Goddammit, that’s not true! I had nothing to do with what happened. Someone else . . . Someone else!”
But that wasn’t entirely precise. He knew he had hoped for the castle to burn, had even considered seeing to it himself. Then along came the Zimmerman kid and his lit joint . . .
Traveling through a blast furnace Gilhooley’s brain locked onto a more pressing concern than his outraging the dead. He managed a howling cry that parched his lungs with smoke.
“I’m going to die . . . oh God, I’m going to die here along with the rest of them! Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, I’m going to burn until I’m dead!”
Shutting his eyes and waiting for the fire to take him he hoped that death, when it came, would be quick.
“Please . . . please . . .”
The track whipped him through a wild arc that practically threw Gilhooley from his seat, the car careening directly into the widening maw of a neon creature, opening its mouth wide . . .wide . . .
It belched in full stereophonic sound.
The steel hearse spiraled in blackness. Arriving at its station the ride came to a grinding stop. Gilhooley spun around, trying to make sense of what had happened. Tammy Cross was gone. The others were gone too. So was the smoke and fire. In that instant it ended.
Gilhooley pushed away the safety bar, ignoring a gawky ride attendant who tried helping him climb out. Normal breathing took a few moments. He staggered from the car like a cripple, shoving the exit door that led to the ramp outside. Hanging from the railing overlooking the ocean he inhaled the salty air coming off the Atlantic, filling his insides with it. He intended to do the same with a bottle of Jack Daniels.
“I’m all right,” he said aloud, wanting to believe it.
Like a lurching Quasimodo Gilhooley returned to the Haunted Castle’s entrance. It seemed insane, but the lines had grown longer during its closure. A decision had to be made, and quickly. If he shut the place down the media would demand explanations, a lot of them. He didn’t want to come off like a raving lunatic.
“Yes, Larry, it’s unfortunate that we had to close our doors, but it turns out the castle really is haunted. I’m sorry I can’t stay longer, but John-John, Diana, and I are meeting Elvis for drinks.”
Yeah, that would work.
He caught a look at himself in one of the fun house mirrors near the entrance expecting to see the reflection of a man who had just walked through a ten acre barbecue. Although he was sweating like a stuck pig and the twisted mirror made him resemble one, neither his face nor his clothing bore any indication of smoke. To all appearances during the last half hour Cameron Gilhooley had been taking a fully clothed sauna.
He took a moment to think that one over.
He forced a smile.
“No fire,” he said aloud. “No smoke damage because there was no fire.”
Of course.
. . . because none of it was real. He had been part of a performance worthy of David Copperfield, but as counterfeit as disco Vampirella and her holographic pals.
Smoke and mirrors. But no fire.
Gilhooley ran a comb though his hair and straightened his tie, pausing for a reality check. If he shut the castle down tonight he might set off a riot on the pier, and that would not sit well with anybody, least of all the partners. He walked along the length of the crowd trying to get a read on the faces of those in line still waiting to get inside.
His mouth fell open.
He recognized the kid with the big nose standing in line. The kid looked back at Gilhooley.
“How you doin’?”
“You got balls man . . .”
The two teenaged girls had returned also, Miss Bare Midriff and her friend Jeannie the Mute.
“Jeannie, are you okay?”
Apparently Jeannie was better than okay. The girl couldn’t shut her mouth about her experience, telling anyone who would listen. She didn’t even notice Gilhooley standing there.
As he suspected the adult couple he had spoken to earlier had gone, but Gilhooley could live with that. In fact, if he were interpreting this moment correctly he might be able to live with a lot more than that. Judging from the lines stretching to the boardwalk he might live very nicely.
Cameron Gilhooley’s decision became a no-brainer.
He returned to the young ticket collector at the castle entrance and lifted the velvet rope barrier. Smiling, he informed her, “Break is over. We’re open for business.” When three kids in line cheered his smile broadened enough to show teeth.
A new tour group gathered, and a perky young coed-turned-witch stepped forward introducing herself as their guide. “Enjoy yourselves,” Gilhooley told the adventurers as they started out, slapping some kids on the back. They would be getting more than their money’s worth, the whole nine yards and then some.
The crowd disappeared inside the structure’s dark interior.
Soon afterwards, Cameron Gilhooley disappeared inside the nearest boardwalk bar.
***
Ten among that particular tour group’s eighteen adolescents recovered from the experience quickly enough to go one more round the same night. At a nearby Starbuck’s a thirtysomething couple who had been present bitched to one another over cappuccinos that the true monsters of the castle were not those that roamed inside. One skittish teenaged girl spent the next twelve weeks waking up screaming.
During the days that followed the castle’s debut, Ocean Pier’s newest attraction received its share of bad press. There were cries of protest, several demonstrations, even threats of lawsuits.
C. Gilhooley Enterprises, Inc. had no official comment.
Because when you got down to it only one thing mattered.
When Ocean Pier’s summer receipts were tallied the Haunted Castle’s attendance numbers smashed the record books.
And Cameron Gilhooley laughed all the way to the bank.
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